Hallamshire
Hallamshire (or Hallam) is the historical name for an area of South Yorkshire, England, approximating to the current City of Sheffield local government area.
The origin of the name is uncertain. The English Place-Name Society describe "Hallam" originating from a formation meaning "on the rocks". Alternative theories are that it is derived from halgh meaning an area of land at a border,[1] Old Norse hallr meaning a slope or hill, or Old English heall meaning a hall or mansion.[2]
The exact boundaries of this historic district are unknown, but it is thought to have covered the parishes of
History
Pre-conquest Hallamshire
In
The
On the basis of three separate extracts from the Domesday Survey it can be shown that the manors of Hallam, Attercliffe, and Sheffield were three distinct and separate entities at the time of the Survey and beyond. The
Local historian T. Walter Hall (in 1931),[11] following Sidney Addy (1893),[12] suggested that the district's original settlement was at Hallam Head, above the River Rivelin, and that it had been destroyed during the Harrying of the North. As evidence, he noted that the location lies by the ancient Long Causeway route and that the name of the neighbouring Burnt Stones Common referenced its destruction. A compilation of early maps of the area surrounding Hallam Head assembled by Hallam (2015)[13] from a number of sources provides compelling evidence that a pre-Conquest nucleated settlement, almost assuredly the Domesday village of Hallam, was located immediately south of the old Roman road (Redmires Road) approximately 2.8 miles (4.5 km) west of Sheffield. The geographic centre coincides with the junction of Tom Lane and Carsick Hill Road; two ancient byways found mentioned in medieval charters from the 13th century. Hallam provides corroborating charter evidence that leads to the identification of the location Hallam Head, the site for the village of Hallam identified by T. Walter Hall in 1931, being situated near the upper end, or head of the village. A series of three communal fields designated Hallam fields (Hallam Field, Great Hallam Field and Common Fields of Hallam) are mentioned frequently in surrenders from 1550 onward in the context of common pasture. The apparent pattern of a nucleated settlement and associated three-field system would be analogous to ‘town planning’ without a town, had the village of Hallam not existed. The arguments presented by T. Walter Hall and Hallam are rejected by David Hey, who notes that there is no evidence of any settlement larger than a hamlet ever having existed at the site, and that evidence suggests that the Harrying of the North did not affect the Sheffield area.[1] The simple fact that the village of Hallam and Waltheof's aula had been destroyed and no longer existed, and that the taxable value of the manors in the area had been significantly devalued by the time of the Domesday Survey would contradict Hay's position. Addy himself preferred a location just outside the village of Stannington, where there is evidence of a large manor house surrounded by a moat.[14]
After the Norman Conquest
Waltheof initially submitted to
Initially, Judith retained his lands (including Hallamshire), but after Judith refused a second marriage to the Norman knight Simon Saint Liz, William confiscated much of her lands and handed them to her eldest daughter Maud, who then married Saint Liz in Judith's stead. After the death of Saint Liz, Maud married David, the heir to the crown of Scotland, and Waltheof's lands and Earldom were passed to him.
It is possible that Hallamshire was exempted from this transfer and remained in Judith's hands. The Domesday Book states that the manor of Hallam was held by Roger de Busli "of the Countess Judith". The exact nature of the arrangement between Judith and de Busli is unknown, however there is evidence that such an arrangement continued for a number of centuries – an inquisition following the death of Thomas de Furnival in 1332 found that his ancestors had held the manor of Sheffield "of the King of Scotland", paying a yearly service of two white greyhounds.
The earliest known use of the term Hallamshire – "Halumsire" – is found in a deed of the house of Saint Wandrille in Ecclesfield dating from 1161.[15] Historically, the term shire would simply mean the district appropriated to some city, town, or castle, and did not necessarily refer to a county. Hallamshire could therefore be assumed to be the district associated with a town ("vill") called "Hallam", although there is no known record of such a town's existence.[16]
During this early period, the name Hallamshire was retained for the Norman lordship. It was administered from
Hallamshire was included in official lists of the counties of England under Henry VIII in the 16th century.[17]
The territorial division of Hallamshire survived into the 19th century as a liberty, recorded in 1822 as including the parishes of Sheffield,[18] Treeton,[19] Whiston,[20] Rotherham,[21] Handsworth,[22] and Ecclesfield,[23] and with the Duke of Norfolk as Chief Bailiff.[24]
Modern Hallam
Hallam has come to mean, broadly speaking, that area of
.A number of institutions, companies, and
- The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire is a trade guild of steelworkers, founded in 1624 and based in Sheffield.
- Sheffield Hallam is a Parliamentary constituency in western Sheffield, demographically one of the wealthiest such constituencies in Britain.
- Hallamshire was a Parliamentary constituency from 1885 to 1918
- The Cathedral Church of St Mariein Sheffield.
- Broomhilldistrict of Sheffield.
- The High Sheriff of Hallamshire.[25]Both were abolished in 1974.
- The Hallamshire Battalion was the unit of Territorial Force volunteers for the York and Lancaster Regiment. Otherwise known as the 4th Battalion, it fought in the First World War and in the Second World War. Unusually, but appropriately, it fought in the same formation in both wars. This was the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division
- Sheffield Hallam University is one of the two universities in the City of Sheffield. Created when Sheffield City Polytechnic became a university in 1992, it took the name Hallam to distinguish it from the pre-existing University of Sheffield.
- .
- The Hallam Line is a railway line that runs from Sheffield to Leeds via Barnsley.
- Hallam Cricket Club at Hallam Head is one of the oldest in the North of England, earliest records dating from 1804.
- Hallam F.C. was formed from it in 1860 and still plays on the same ground, making it the oldest football club ground in the world.
- Hallamshire Golf Club, founded in 1897.
- Sheffield & Hallamshire FA expands over the wide area, stretching into West Yorkshire to include teams from South Elmsall and Nostell and into Nottinghamshire to include teams from Worksop.
- Hallamshire Harriers Sheffield Athletics Club, one of two major athletics clubs in the city.[26]
- The Hallamshire Lodge, freemasons lodge at Tapton Hall, Sheffield
- The Hallam Towerin the Fulwood area of Sheffield, formerly a hotel.
- Hallam Primary School is a primary school in the Lodge Moor area of Sheffield.
Connection to the Robin Hood legend
The small village of Loxley, now a suburb of western Sheffield, lies within Hallamshire. A 1637 survey by John Harrison of the estates in or near Sheffield belonging to the Earl of Arundel states that a place called little Haggas croft in Loxley Firth contained "the foundacion of a house or cottage where Robin Hood was born".[27] Antiquarian Joseph Hunter—writing in 1819—reaffirmed this local tradition, stating that Loxley Chase has "the fairest pretensions to be the Locksley of our old ballads, where was born that redoubtable hero Robin Hood."[28]
See also
- History of Sheffield
- History of Yorkshire
- List of hundreds of England and Wales
- Allertonshire
- Burghshire
- Hallam, Pennsylvania
- Hexhamshire
- Howdenshire
- Richmondshire
- Winchcombeshire
References and notes
- ^ a b c d David Hey, Historic Hallamshire
- ^ Goodall, Armitage C. (1913). "Hallam". Place-Names of South-West Yorkshire; that is, of so much of the West Riding as lies south of the Aire from Keighley onwards. Cambridge: University Press. p. 156.
- ^ a b See chapter I of Hunter (1819) for a discussion of the boundaries of Hallamshire.
- ^ Barrow 1973, p. 17.
- ^ Barrow 1973, p. 53.
- ^ Hallam, R.L. (2015). The Village of Hallam and Waltheof's Aula. https://docs.com/robert-hallam/8554/the-village-of-hallam-and-waltheofs-aula
- ^ Leader, John Daniel (1897). The Records of the Burgery of Sheffield. Sheffield: The Sheffield Independent Press, Limited. pp. xix–xxii.
- ^ Charlesworth, F. "Hallun—Sheffield". Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society. 5: 61.
- ^ Accounts of the 1927–1930 (and more recent) archaeological investigations of Sheffield Castle can be found on the Sheffield Markets website and at the Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust archaeology website (both accessed 13 August 2005).
- ^ A discussion of possible locations of the aula can be found in chapter II of Hunter (1819)
- OCLC 14508892.
- ^ Addy, The Hall of Waltheof, Chapter XXIII. "Ibi Habuit Wallef Comes Aulam"
- ^ Hallam, R.L. (2015). The Village of Hallam and Waltheof's Aula. https://docs.com/robert-hallam/8554/the-village-of-hallam-and-waltheofs-aula
- ^ Addy, The Hall of Waltheof, Chapter XXXV. The Stannington Diploma—The Stone Villa—The Hall
- ^ Transcribed in Hunter, Hallamshire, p. 28.
- ^ Hunter, Hallamshire, chapter 1
- ^ Gairdner, James; Brodie, R. H., eds. (1908). "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 21 Part 1: January-August 1546". British History Online. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 401.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 434.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 445.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 246.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 302.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 276.
- ^ Langdale 1822, p. 464.
- ^ The Criminal Justice Administration Act (Commencement) Order 1962 (S.I.1962/791)
- ^ "Hallamshire Harriers – Track & Field; Marathon & Cross-Country". www.hallamshireharriers.co.uk.
- ^ Quoted in Addy, A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield, p. lxxiii. Note that Addy believed this statement to be "a piece of popular fiction".
- ^ Hunter, Hallamshire, chapter 1, p. 3
- Addy, The Hall of Waltheof, Chapter XXXV. The Stannington Diploma—The Stone Villa—The Hall
Bibliography
- Addy, Sidney Oldall (1888). A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield. Including a Selection of Local Names, and Some Notices of Folk-Lore, Games, and Customs. London: Trubner & Co. for the English Dialect Society. (wikisource)
- OCLC 12239309. (wikisource)
- Barrow, G. W. S. (2003) [1973]. "Pre-feudal Scotland: shires and thanes". The Kingdom of the Scots: Government, Church and Society from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 7–56. ISBN 0748618031. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- Hunter, Joseph (1819). Hallamshire. The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield in the County of York. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor & Jones. Retrieved 20 September 2014. (wikisource)
- Langdale, Thomas (1822). A Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire. Northallerton: J. Langdale. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
External links
- Hallamshire - a note on its meaning and extent Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives.
- Hallam in the Domesday Book